


Last of the Pumpkin Wine

by kinetikatrue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-01
Updated: 2004-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-26 21:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harry and Draco get drunk together after a quidditch match - and there are revelations that have been a long time in coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last of the Pumpkin Wine

**Author's Note:**

> Originally inspired by the [](http://contrelamontre.livejournal.com/profile)[**contrelamontre**](http://contrelamontre.livejournal.com/) Autumn prompt, but quickly went way over its time limit and sprouted plot – which proceeded to decide to tie itself into the timeline of another fic bunny that’s still waiting for me to do something about it. Now, this last bit is particularly relevant because it was a bunny that jumped me in one of [](http://cluegirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**cluegirl**](http://cluegirl.livejournal.com/)’s comment threads and, well, I’m posting this in honor of her birthday! So, Happy Birthday, Miz Catt!

Pumpkin vines still sprouted in the patch by the groundskeeper's hut every autumn. The gourds they bore were perhaps not quite as large or as orange as they had been when Hagrid had tended them, but still more than big enough for the castle to put by their annual pressing of pumpkin juice, as well as to serve fresh pumpkin pastries at the Halloween Feast. There had even been just enough to allow for the bottling of a single batch of Hogwarts’ traditional pumpkin brew, which some called cider and others wine.

Harry Potter had been wandering the kitchens, seeking a bottle of that very beverage with which to celebrate the Gryffindor House Team’s latest Quidditch victory, when he quite literally bumped into Draco Malfoy. And when he found that the other man sought the very same thing, well, he magnanimously suggested that they pool their efforts, as 'surely, two of the best Hogwarts Seekers in recent memory ought to be able to find anything if they give it a proper try.'

It _had_ taken some doing, but their combined efforts had eventually paid off, and a strategic revelation (there was a false panel at the back of a cupboard filled with sweets) and an inspired password guess ('socks') later, they had come into possession of the one bottle still stashed there. And so, after a hurried and furtive dash, through castle corridors as familiar as their own skins, they found themselves sprawled on the hillside above the lake, passing the bottle of amber liquid back and forth, and, for the most part, making no move to speak.

They had started off with what could only be described as some halfheartedly ritual house team bashing, but in the end neither of them had really had the heart for it, as for once it had been a truly exceptional game. Both Gryffindor and Slytherin had played skillfully and well, proffering up well-coordinated attacks on the parts of their chasers, highly-targeted bludger deployment on the parts of their beaters, and an assortment of saves on the parts of their keepers that some people were referring to as near-miraculous. The game-winning dive for the snitch by the Gryffindor Seeker had even been nearly worthy of Harry, himself.

So now they sat in silence, contemplating the scene spread before them: the lake, to one side, rippling slightly in the wind; the grounds-keeper’s cottage, still attended by a few forlorn pumpkins, to the other; and all along the horizon the great bulk of the Forbidden Forest, strangely green for November. In the distance they could hear the cheerful shouts of those few students who had favoured larking about outside over attending the various post-match parties, but from their vantage point they could see nobody and nobody could see them. If they had thought about it, they might have said that this was exactly why they had chosen this spot, but they had chosen not to think about this or anything else more meaningful than how pleasant the taste of pumpkin cider was and what a lovely warm feeling it gave one, starting in one’s stomach and radiating out from there.

It was this very feeling of heavenly warmth and its accompanying lassitude that eventually loosened Harry’s tongue. He had been beginning to wonder if Malfoy intended to sit in silence forever, and while he would once have counted this all to the good, he had enjoyed the friendly banter they had maintained whilst searching for the alcohol and had since come to the conclusion that a bit of conversation might not make a bad accompaniment to the drinking of it as well. The thought that he was considering the possibility of willingly talking to Malfoy seemed quite amusing to his alcohol-fuzzed brain and when it offered up the probable reactions of his two best friends, he nearly laughed aloud, for he could all but hear their proclamations of ‘mental’ and ‘hardly sensible’. And then the pumpkins mixed with Hermione’s voice to spark a memory and he found himself musing aloud, “I wonder if she ever found out for sure whether she was right?”

Malfoy, who had been staring off into the middle-distance, seemingly at nothing, took a moment to respond. And when he did, his only reply was a confused-sounding, “what?”

“Hermione – she had a theory –”

“Of course she had a theory.”

“She had a theory that Hagrid used Engorgement Charms on the pumpkins when he was groundskeeper. To make them as big as they were.”

“Wasn’t he not supposed to do magic then?”

“Yeah. Dumbledore turned a blind eye to him still having a wand.”

“Bending the rules for his strays. As usual.”

“Well, Hagrid _was_ innocent. You know as well as I do that it was Riddle who was the problem. But that’s not the point –“

“Of course not. You’d rather talk about pumpkins than the ‘shadowed times’ in which we grew up.”

“Well, wouldn’t you? Didn’t you get enough of that by the time the war was over? I certainly did.” And Harry lapsed into silence again, made pensive by the flood of memories the single mention of the war brought him. He was not allowed to brood for long, however, as Draco cut through his maundering thoughts with a single, derisive snort.

“This is just classic. The War Hero - still troubled by the war. What – almost a decade later? You might not have realised this, but the rest of us don’t exactly have shining memories of that time either, and _we’ve_ managed to get on with our lives.”

“Oh – by hardly venturing forth from your ancestral home for the past decade - is that what you call getting on with life? I’d rather have thought that that’d be better classified as hiding.”

“You might not have picked up on this one either: I’m still not exactly persona most grata –“

“No, I did notice _that_ –“

“And you couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. Right honorable Gryffindor _you_ are.”

“Look – what with hardly leaving the Manor and dropping out of contact with just about _everybody_ –“

“It’s not as though there’s anybody still alive who would actually want to hear from me –“

“I – _Snape_ was worried . . . and that’s not the point, either! what I was going to say was: I _have_ tried to put in a good word for you when I could. I do know what you did, after all.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’. Believe me when I say that I know what it feels like to be ostracised –“

“Voldemort’s favourite target, Mad Harry Potter, ‘Heir of Slytherin’. D’y’know how bloody jealous I was that _you_ could speak Parseltongue?”

“You wouldn’t have been if you’d been able to understand _all_ of Nagini’s thoughts.”

And once again they lapsed into silence. They had, unconsciously, incrementally decreased the amount of space between them over the course of the conversation and now sat so close together that it would’ve taken no great effort for them to touch. Draco lay on his back, braced on one elbow and with the opposite knee drawn up for balance. He stared down at the lake, and in the one quick glance Harry allowed himself before turning away it seemed that his face was rather like the lake’s surface, reflecting its surroundings without allowing one to see what went on beneath. What he did not notice was that his position exactly mirrored his companion’s: he braced himself on his outside elbow and had his inside knee drawn up as counterweight, which arrangement allowed for an unobstructed view of the pumpkin patch and the few pumpkins left there. Now he found himself thinking foolish things about them, wondering whether they were neither as big nor as orange as they used to be because they missed Hagrid as much as he did. To clear his head of the nonsense that currently inhabited it, he spoke his thoughts aloud.

“It’s just that they don’t have the charms on them any longer. They don’t miss him. They’re just pumpkins. That’s all.”

“You’re daft, Potter. Utterly daft.”

“Can’t you see? The pumpkins – they’re smaller than they were when we were at school.”

“And we’re bigger than we were when we were at school. It doesn’t mean anything; it just is.”

“We’re not that much bigger – I’ve only grown an inch or two since Seventh Year and you’re exactly the same height as you were when you left school. Only thing that’s grown on _you_ ‘s your hair - ,” and here Harry broke off, suddenly realising what he’d just said.

Draco Malfoy did not do as Harry expected and laugh, however; instead he spent a long moment just looking at Harry consideringly. When he did speak, his tone was that of someone who had just had one of the mysteries of the universe explained to him.

“Well. Suddenly Sixth Year makes a whole lot more sense –”

“Er -”

“I spent the longest time thinking you were just another Gryffindor prude, but really – really, you were utterly terrified of what would happen if I found out. The Brave Harry Potter. Who’d’ve thought it?”

“Well, what would you’ve expected you to do if you got ahold of a secret like that? I’m not completely stupid, y’know. I’d had five years already to figure out that it would be all rude nicknames and embarrassing jokes for as long as it took you to get bored . . . and as far as I knew that might be never.”

“So you could face the utterly depraved Lord Voldemort, but not a little harmless teasing? You _are_ a nutter.”

“That’s just it, though – there was a war on, Voldemort had practically taken over my life, all I wanted was a little bit of normality. And if you found out –”

“That would be that. Right then, if it’s normality you want – let’s go look at those pumpkins,” and so saying, he fitted actions to words: getting gracelessly to his feet, bottle in hand; pulling Harry up after him; and setting off down the hill in a manner that was half lope and half stagger. Harry found that he could do nothing but follow, worried that at any moment the other man would trip over his own feet and crack his head on one of the rocks that lay in his path. He was concentrating so fully on this possibility that it took more than a moment him to realise that not only was Draco doing a perfectly adequate job of remaining upright, but that he was also singing. Completely tunelessly, yes, but still: singing – and waving the bottle about in a vague attempt at keeping time. With his tweed robes billowing out behind him and the weak autumn sun giving him a spotty sort of halo, he looked like nothing so much as a debauched angel who’d fallen in with the country set. The effect was spoilt, however, when one actually paid attention to the words.

_“The sexual life of the camel_  
Is stranger than anyone thinks.  
At the height of the mating season  
He tries to bugger the Sphinx.

_But the Sphinx's posterior sphincter_  
Is clogged by the sands of the Nile,  
Which accounts for the hump on the camel,  
And the Sphinx's inscrutable smile.”

At this point, Draco’s mood shifted abruptly – he left off singing the song he had been in the midst of and, in fact, came to a complete halt partway down the hillside. He stood there for a very long moment before taking off again and diving headlong into a different tune, this time practically screaming the lyrics, making every syllable an act of further defiance, propelled by an energy that almost threatened to rend him into bits and scatter him over the pumpkin patch like a particularly odd sowing.

_“Oh, you Death Eaters I name, listen here, listen here!_  
Oh, you Death Eaters I name, listen here.  
Oh, you Death Eaters I name,  
Your doctrines I will blame,  
Your families live in shame – never fear!

  
_What makes a hero in verse, famed afar, famed afar?_  
What makes a hero in verse, famed afar?  
What makes a hero in verse?  
To cast the killing curse,  
Take a Parent's life, or worse, in bloody war!”

The final words of the song had brought Draco to the foot of the hill and the pumpkin patch and, having run out of things to say and places to go, he seemed to deflate and shrink in on himself. After a moment, though, he must have come to a decision, for he walked around to the other side of one of the larger pumpkins and, bracing himself against it, slid down to rest upon the ground. Harry, who had been following at a careful distance the entire way down, worried a bit at this, for Malfoy had never been known for willingly getting himself any dirtier than necessary and the pumpkin patch was all turned earth where it wasn’t pumpkins or vines. Spurred on by this new bit of worry, he took the last bit of the hill at a trot.

At this faster pace, he reached the pumpkin patch in barely any time at all, but found himself tripping over his own feet as a result when it finally occurred to him that it would perhaps be better for him to not coming come rushing up to Malfoy quite so frantically. He did manage to slow his approach to something more resembling an amble in time to make his careful way around Malfoy’s pumpkin; however, when he reached the other side he found Malfoy so lost to the world around him that it seemed he might as well not have bothered. This did not stop him from copying Malfoy’s actions and settling in against the side of the pumpkin in silence; it merely made him want to dive beneath the unnaturally still waters of the other man’s face and become acquainted with whatever lurked there. He had always had a particularly strong streak of the famed Gryffindor foolishness in the face of potential danger; once he had assumed that it had been eradicated by the exigencies of war, but now it seemed that it had merely been waiting for Malfoy to show up and be his old, infuriatingly quixotic self. That was how he found himself doing something fully in keeping with his sudden return to the less well-considered actions of his youth: poking Draco Malfoy in the ribs.

Later on, they would say it had been the wine that started it. And that was true, as far as it went, for they likely wouldn’t have ended up sitting in the pumpkin patch together that day, if they hadn’t both gone looking for alcohol at the same time. It was just that in the end, the alcohol was merely the spark that started the blaze; in order for the fire that it started to burn as long and bright and hot as did, there had to have been something there just waiting to be kindled and a surfeit of fuel right at hand.

Draco had started at being poked, then turned to face his assailant and frozen momentarily, seemingly snared by some mix of the thoughts that ghosted beneath his still-blank expression and whatever he saw in Harry’s own face. Whatever it was did not hold him for long, however, for Harry was still contemplating the possible things it could be, when the counter-attack took him completely unaware and sent them both sprawling into the dirt in a tangle of legs and robes and what seemed to be far too many arms.

There had been a time when Harry had dreamt of ending up in just such a situation – at first so that he might have a chance to beat Draco Malfoy’s smugly smooth face bloody and senseless, but later so that the fighting might in time change to a tumbling, rubbing sort of entanglement that would leave them both breathless and wanting and perhaps lead to things that didn’t have to start with an intentional tumble into the dirt. That dream had long since been pushed to the back of his mind, buried under the necessities of winning a war and going on in its aftermath. Buried further by ten years of living with dreams more impossible than any mere expression of lust. 

Now, the weight of Draco Malfoy’s body, lying carelessly on top of his own, and the warmth of Draco’s pumpkin-wine scented breath gusting against the side of his neck were enough to bring all the images he had ever conjured within the safety of his bed-curtains, and all the wants he had ever attached to them, rushing back in one overwhelming wave of sensation that went straight to his prick and left him almost uncomfortably hard and quite close to embarrassing himself. In that moment, he reacted instinctively, sending their tangle of bodies rolling across clumps of earth and small stones, in a dance that in other days might have been about dominance, but in this instance merely betokened Harry’s sudden need to do _something_. When they came to rest again, however, Harry found that their relative positions had changed so that he was the one on top. In the split second before his hips followed their desired course and started grinding against their counterparts, Malfoy’s likely reaction to such behaviour flashed through Harry’s mind. And that, that was enough to make him all but recoil in horror at the prospect. His vaunted Gryffindor bravery was enough to hold that reaction in check, as well, though, so he was left with one overwhelming thought: he needed to stop touching Malfoy before things got entirely out of hand.

It was this sudden imperative that sent him scrambling to his feet, fumbling inside his robes for his wand as he did so. His mumbled, “Wouldn’t you like to find out about those pumpkins? I think I’ll try a _finite_ ,” brought Malfoy to his feet as well, his actions just a shade short of rushed; however, Malfoy didn’t stay still for long. He instead showed an entirely Slytherin sense of self-preservation and moved as far out of range of any potential side-effects as he could while still being able to observe the effects of Harry’s casting. Harry was so intent on not appearing to pay undue attention to the other man, however, that Malfoy could likely have run screaming past the grounds-keeper’s hut without causing any sort of remark. As it was, his retreat went completely unnoticed ‘til after the words had been spoken and the wand waved and then – then there were other things to occupy both their attention.

Harry had spoken the pair of words needed to end a spell many a time since finding out he was a wizard and while there had been occasions upon which they hadn’t had the intended effect, in the past it had always been because the spell in question could not be ended by a _finite incantatem_ or because Harry had not been specific enough about what he wanted it to do; this time, it seemed that the afternoon’s drinking had done its work, for his words had come out well and truly slurred. His casting had had _some_ obvious effect, however; before his disbelieving eyes, the remaining pumpkins had immediately changed in size, quickly leaving behind their formerly undersized state in favour of nothing less than huge. In fact, their change in size was so great that had there been more pumpkins the effects could have been disastrous rather than merely startling.

Though it took Harry a moment to realise just what else had happened, when he felt his skin rise up in a swell of mutinous goose-pimples at being suddenly surrounded by overly chill air, he could not deny the reality of the situation: the misfired spell had not only caused the pumpkins that surrounded him to swell to truly gigantic proportions (though it had done nothing for their somewhat anemic orange hue), it had also caused his clothes to vanish into nothingness. The situation was made truly complete, however, when Malfoy appeared from around the side of a pumpkin, looking none the worse for wear and still clutching the thrice-damned bottle of pumpkin wine. He did nothing so crude as rake his eyes leisurely over Harry’s body; instead, barely seeming to spare a glance for what could hardly fail to be a spectacle, he leant bonelessly against the nearest pumpkin and turned an expectant look on Harry, as though he were a theatre patron waiting for the show to begin. After only a moment of this - when it became obvious that Harry intended to remain as silent and motionless as possible, he opened his mouth to speak – perhaps planning to create his own entertainment.

”Y’know, Potter - you really oughtn’t cast spells when your concentration is somewhat impaired.” Malfoy’s words should have been taunting - or at least teasing, but the slight breathlessness that one could detect around the edges of his voice rather spoilt the effect and let Harry know that whether or not there was anything for the artfully baggy lines of Malfoy’s tweed robes to conceal, his state of accidental undress _was_ having some effect on the other man. It was this revelation that brought to his attention the fact that while his arousal had wilted somewhat in the face of the sudden onslaught of cold, it had not been vanquished entirely and was, in fact, reviving at the thought of Malfoy being in a similar state. 

If he had been frozen with embarrassment before, his current awareness should have turned that to petrification; instead Harry found himself propelled into action. He started moving purposefully toward the pumpkin against which Malfoy continued to lean, even in the face of this rapid approach. As Harry closed the distance between them, he turned words over in his mind, trying to find the right ones with which to answer Malfoy’s remark and engage him in what, he had come to realise, was a long-overdue battle. He had almost attained his goal when they finally came to him, and so, he issued his retort while looking directly into Draco Malfoy’s wide, blue-grey eyes.

“Not sneering now, are you?”

And he wasn’t – if anything, at that moment, Draco resembled nothing so much as an excessively pale fish, for being presented with a completely naked and fully aroused Harry at such close range had left him unable to manage words or any actions more complicated than standing there with his mouth hanging open. His eyes, however, seemed compelled to move continuously from one part of Harry’s body to the next, as though afraid that if they didn’t take it all in now, they’d never get a chance to do so again. This simple fact made Harry wonder whether Draco had spent the latter part of his Hogwarts career imagining the same sorts of things he had. Then Harry closed the last bit of distance between them, so that they stood with their bodies almost-but-not-quite touching, and Draco shivered, despite being by far the more warmly dressed of the two of them, and that seemed to be all the answer that was needed for the moment.

In fact, that shiver seemed, to Harry, to be answer and permission all in one, and it freed him to do one of the things he had imagined the longest – to reach out and tangle his fingers in the moonlit spidersilk that fell in fashionable waves from the crown of Draco’s head. It was not quite as lustrous as his imagination had painted it, but the rough slub of actual hair sliding through his fingers more than compensated for any discrepancies between reality and dream. 

After that, however, things followed quickly, one upon the other. There were kisses that rapidly increased in intensity from the merest brush of lips over lips to a skirmish of teeth and tongues; hands that made clumsy work of robe fastenings in their haste to lay claim to the flesh hidden beneath; then a press of naked flesh against naked flesh, that set them rubbing and rocking and pressing into and away from the pumpkin which supported them. Two pairs of hands sought to commit to memory the feel of every inch of skin they could reach, cocks butted against bellies and hipbones and each other, and mouths only broke apart to latch for moments onto earlobes and collarbones or trace the lines of rarely-exposed necks. There was no gentleness in any of this, for it was just as much a battle as Harry had expected; it was not missed, however, as the participants would not have known what to do with it had there been any, for they could no more separate their long-nursed lusts from their equally long-held rivalry than they could take leave of the earth without their brooms.

There was no control to any of it, either. These were things that had waited years to happen, and with every brutal kiss and haphazard thrust they came closer and closer to simply exploding with the overwhelming intensity of it all. In his dreams, everything had been perfect – there hadn’t been any fumbling or awkward rearranging of body parts or accidental biting of lips; noses had never been an obstacle to be overcome in the midst of snogging; every touch had elicited a moan of pleasure and every cessation a growl of frustration. The actuality was much removed from the dream, however, for dreaming something was not doing it, and it would have taken rather more time and work than they had patience for then to achieve the sort of effortless union they had so oft imagined, but in the end that was no matter, for it was that very roughness and imperfection, contrasted with his long-ago dreams, that sent Harry over the edge, to press Draco up against the pumpkin one last time and spurt over both their nestled cocks and bellies and thighs. He did not draw back immediately, for he was perfectly content to remain exactly as he was, and, in the next moment, Draco also found release, arching and crying out wordlessly and holding tight to Harry as he slumped against him. Then they gave themselves over to oblivion.

They might’ve meant to land as they did, or they might’ve simply collapsed as they had been standing, but when they came to a bit later, they were lying in a heap in the midst of the giant pumpkins. It was still cold, and the sun was getting rather low in the sky, and there was a particularly uncomfortable clump of earth poking Harry in the back, and Draco was slumped on top of him, all dead weight, with each of his knobbly knees and elbows managing to find a different tender part of Harry to press up against. Despite all this, though, Harry would have had to admit, if asked, that he was feeling rather better than he had in a long time. As though a tension he hadn’t even known about had suddenly been dispelled. He would’ve liked to have been able to thank Hagrid for that.

And thinking of Hagrid reminded him of the pumpkins they were surrounded by, and the whole thing suddenly seemed exceptionally, tremendously silly and then all he could do was begin to exclaim, “Only Hagrid– ,” before collapsing into helplessly partially-drunken giggling.

“Eight foot high pumpkins. He’d just have to have eight foot high pumpkins. And try to hide them by making them look like they’re only four foot rather than eight.” Draco sounded like he was trying for disgruntled, but the combined effects of half a bottle of pumpkin wine and a recent orgasm left him sounding rather gruntled, indeed. If the mildly smug smile that kept quirking his mouth were anything to go by, however, he really didn’t mind the current state of affairs one bit.

Harry thought for a moment to make some remark about how if Hagrid hadn’t been hiding them in just that manner it likely would’ve taken them rather longer to get naked, but the thinking had taken rather longer than he had thought it had and in the meantime, Draco had continued to speak.

“Still, he can’t have thought of that himself. Really, it’s far too Slytherin an idea. Who would possibly have helped him, though?”

Normally, Harry would’ve leapt to speculate or defend, but on this occasion, as he lay on the ground, sated, but naked and getting colder by the minute, he thought to protest, “Let’s save something to investigate for next time, right? This has been rather enough for one day." 

And then, when Draco looked to be gathering himself up to object, he did the only reasonable thing he could think of and kissed him, which was effective inasmuch as it stopped the impending argument, but meant that they ended up staying where they were as the sun began to set behind the pumpkins and dark began to fall. Eventually, however, they did come up for air, which led to Draco refastening his robes and Harry discovering, quite sheepishly, that all it took to get _his_ back was another _finite incantatem_ , albeit less slurred than the last. 

Then they made their way back up the hill, singing songs about what unspeakable things Scotsmen do to sheep all the way, to the castle, where they parted, after making rude comments about what Gryffindor and Slytherin would do to each other the next time they met. McGonagall, who happened to witness that final interaction, sighed and wondered to herself whether they ever intended to get over their foolish schoolboy grudge.

When some sixth years, who had gone to ‘take a walk along the edge of the forest’, encountred the giant pumpkins the next day, along with the empty bottle of pumpkin wine, the speculation was rampant as to whose drunken foolishness this was a result of. And, when a simple _finite incantatem_ did nothing to dispel the pumpkins’ unusual size, they were quite puzzled, indeed.


End file.
